as England paid bounties on it. But the time must come when the colonists
would demand to do what they liked with their own land, and other things;
when they would import rum by stealth and hardly blush to be found out;
when some of the less democratically-minded decided that there were
advantages in slaves after all; and when some of the more independent
declared they could not endure oppression, and migrated to other colonies.
After struggling a score of years against the inevitable, the trustees
surrendered their trusteeship, and the colony came under the management of
the Second George. Oglethorpe had long ere this retired to England, after
having kept his promise of reducing the Spaniards to order; and at his
home at Cranham Hall in Essex he continued to be the friend of man until
after the close of the American Revolution.

The war with Spain, of which Oglethorpe's unsuccessful attack upon St.
Augustine and triumphant defense of his own place was but a very minor
feature, raged for a while in the West Indies with no very marked
advantage to either contestant, and then drew the other nations of Europe
into the fray. Nothing creditable was being fought for on either side.
England, to be sure, had declared war with the object of expunging Spain
from America; but it had been only in order that she herself might replace
Spain there as a monopolist. France came in to prevent England from
enjoying this monopoly. The death of the Austrian king and a consequent
dispute as to the succession added that power to the melee. Russia
received an invitation to join, and this finally led to the Peace of Aix
La Chapelle in 1748, which replaced all things in dispute just where they
were before innumerable lives and enormous treasure had been expended. But
the Eighteenth was a fighting Century, for it was the transition period
from the old to the new order of civilized life.

The part borne by the American colonies in this struggle was quite